THE GARDEN GREEN
THIS IS MY RESUME
When he got the Park Mall account he told me, "I got the perfect job for you." Amazing place with beautiful street trees and a complex irrigation system with 528 heads. I learned irrigation and endurance. There was a bunch of Pyracantha hedges in the parking lot I had to keep precise. Every one of them had a different shape or style to it because the cement curb islands were all different shapes. So I parlayed THAT experience into an application for a work for rent job at
As the Buzzard flies, gammons gulch to tucson miles - Search (bing.com) This was a work-for-rent full on caretaker situation. Some gardening good 'ol days. Wearing overalls every day for 40 hours as indoor/outdoor plant guy at the original mall in Tucson and a co-caretaker of the last house on Broadway. Bordering the 9-acre Sahuaro East Monument, and a 170,000-acre section of the Coronado National Forest.
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Ancient Garden attempts to bring you a working knowledge of the plant world, so we can all create a plan for the stewardship of nature.
Left to its own devices, nature knows what to do. Humans however have taken resource extraction as a basis for wealth, with very few of them giving back. Everyone wants to park in the shade, but no one wants to plant a tree. Capitalism is like your Aunt emptying valuables from Grandmas house as me mere is dying in the hospital.
I like to use the example of the Astor family to illustrate how we've gone wrong. John Jacob Astor made his money by having millions of animals killed. A master of the Fur Trade, it's said he had a golden touch, but I can't stop the image of the bones of skinned animals drying in the sun. Slaughtered.
Dynasties of wealth were made from the stripping of the ancient forests across the world. Proper society is filled with illegitimate wealth that has been derived from development and destruction and understanding this ... is lesson one. Creating abundance is the only true wealth.
Imagine some little 4-ounce bird has just flown 250 miles hopping from one island to the next looking for food and shelter as it migrates north. She goes to the cookie cutter house in the gated community and sees oleanders, ixora, plumbago, philodendron, and other non-native plants. Off to the next house....no food here either.
Finally, she flies into my yard, White Indigo Berry, Wild Coffee (Psycotira nervosa), Tamarind, Elderberry, Sugar Cane, Fiddlewood, Maypop (passion vine) Marlberry, Saw Palmetto, Snowberry and others. If not fruiting, they are flowering which attracts the many pollinating insects birds love to eat. Right now in early November Fiddlewood is flowering and Marlberry and Firebush and Wild Coffee have large, juicy berries waiting for migrating birds to arrive.
Evolutionarily speaking, anomalies such as variegation and dwarfism occur in 1 in a thousand cases. Sometimes one in a million, depending on the animal or plant. 
MESQUITE
I got a job at Atlantic View in early October of 1989, a seven-story condo with ocean views. Well one day my landscape boss was caught smoking crack on the fifth floor. He got fired and my New Age buddy, Dave, was suddenly boss. Turnover such as it is in Arizona and Florida, Dave was funny and smart but definitely suffered from IED. Intermittent Explosive Disorder. He ended up getting fired too, so there I was, two months in Florida and I was the landscaping boss.
South American investors with alleged, old school drug gang connections, was the shadowy power behind the throne of this development. It was reputed they were laundering money. Then one day, they went to clear land on the dunes, and we were all told "if we called the county, we'd be fired immediately." They began clearing the dunes like a military invasion, then a helicopter flew over and hovered. The county caught them.
Fred Stresau had done the landscape design and I learned he
was a bestselling author. He wrote “Florida, My Eden” which remained the
landscape bible through the nineties for many in Florida. He had died before
the project was finished and planted, and I never met him, but Fred Stresau Jr. visited the
site, and he was such a dick.
The project manager was also a dick. The developers hired gun, he fucked with everybody, but respected me for some reason. On December 24th, one of the worst freezes in decades was predicted for all of Florida. It snowed on Christmas Day in Titusville, we later found out. Even though I had a difficult time whipping the boys into being 100% productive during regular hours, this emergency made us gel into a real team. Through their initiative.
There was nothing we could do to protect the 70 Coconut Palms out by the street from the predicted 22 to 24 degrees, but we had many plants in pots that were bound to be frozen by this freeze. The site boss would write it off as a business loss, but the boys had a different idea. This was one of those worker moments when the workers grabbed the initiative.
There was Paul the pot dealer and a seriously redneck dude from West Virginia
and the guy that looked like Jesus. A 6’4” Jesus. He gave me some Alligator toes and I still have them. A pagan welcome to me in Florida. All great, sincere men who
respected each other and they got the notion to build a greenhouse. Five hooligans with a focus.
“Are you kidding,” the developer said when I told him their idea, We didn’t need to buy a thing. They made a 15 by 10 foot greenhouse to protect the more rare and frost sensitive material. I planted those tree seeds I had ordered from catalogs in 89 that I had hoped to grow in Florida.
They built the entire thing from what was in the dumpsters and what we could scrouge from home that night. Plastic and wood, it was a work of genius with this incredible cold front headed our way. Twenty degrees along the whole Treasure Coast as it turned out, the coldest night in 40 years.
Everything survived, and my seeds even germinated. What didn’t fit in the greenhouse we placed next to it where it was warmer and covered them with sheets. Our fifth guy, a young troublemaker, but a good egg, didn’t have anything to do on Christmas Day, so he came in checked on the heater.
TURNING YARDS INTO GARDENS
Then I
realized that maybe Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were far from the
people we knew, and Enfield Connecticut was quite New Englandy in its own way
with its old houses and farm stands. At the end of April, I had been at Norms
for two weeks. They spent a month or something in Cape Cod and I was house
sitting which, all in all, was a pretty cool transition to New England. Taking
care of Freddy the dog and shepherding the arrival of Dickens and Rocky, our
cats.
I
applied at Tarnow Nursery which was down the road about a half a mile and got a
job. Minimum wage had risen to $3.35 an hour and despite a pretty good
horticultural resume by this point, I started at $3.50. Owner John was a well-known skinflint as I found out from his nieces Nancy and Susan who had set up
the nursery the previous fall and ran the place. He barely paid them 4 an hour
to run the place, and they were kin.
There’s
that pattern emerging that most guys wanted to be millionaires. The nursery
owner probably became a millionaire eventually, on the backs of 100, mostly
dedicated young people of course. As did Tom Collins in later years with lots
of turnover and probably 1000 employees at Captain Hirams in Sebastian Florida. As did the owners of
Rock City leaving 500 disgruntled employees in their wake at least.
Joe
from Springfield came along at Tarnow Nursery, and he was a young, but old
looking, college grad and he became the boss and Susan and Nancy went back to
the main store to work, except weekends when Joe was off, and they were the
bosses. We spent a lot of time talking on the weekends and there was quite a
bunch of interesting kids that came through that summer. That was a good crew.
At 32,
I was the oldest at the jobsite and should have been well on my way to a
capitalist career and accumulating assets and investing for retirement, but I
wasn’t buying into this system. I had learned quite a bit about plants the
previous four years with the mall and caretaker job, and I quickly learned
about Connecticut's favorite plants.
I
thought I had quite a good sales approach and we were taught to handle two
customers and go between them while, you know, keeping the elbows and ankles
flying when Joe was there. I started by being a loader and met many of the
Enfield people who frequented the store who lauded the variety of the plants. This
was no vegetable stand with plants, it was a slick professionalism that people like, and Tarnows quickly became Enfields favorite nursery.
The
end of the summer came, and it was pumpkins and fall decorations and selling
the fall planting concept. The kids went back to college, and I became the main salesperson (except when that lazy guinea
schlub from the Main store worked there). He was lazy as fuck and immediately
had an effect on productivity. By November, Michelle ran the Christmas shop, and
I was the everything else person. She was sharp and knew how to please the
little old ladies buying Christmas fluff.
So, my first winter since 1977-8 was set to arrive. We came back to experience the seasons, right? My partner and I had moved to the Thompsonville section of Enfield, and it was like a slice of Boston, a dose of “Southy” that had dropped down in the Connecticut River Valley.
There was Ragnos where they served the
food I had missed out in Arizona. A little further away was the best Polish
Deli I had ever hoid. Our daughter was born and then baptized at the ancient gothy church down the street. A little further down the street, a Norman Rockwell Christmas emerged
at Freshwater Pond when the ice froze.
It was exciting and I realized at this point that I had truly created my own path. My peers were buying houses and working in cubicles, but I decided to carve my own path. I was creating my own horticultural college experience in a pull up your bootstrap's way.
There was Tiny’s Little criminal enterprise next door in a pool
hall and a host of characters living in 8 rentals in two large houses. Add
loose soap opera here.
I
bought some choice little evergreens and had planted them on the side of the
house. Rocky and Dickens would run up the steps to come in because the back
steps were missing. I was planting in this grey dust they called soil and
people were digging it. “Looks good” said local murderer Wilmer Paradise.
My
partner was working downtown, and I went to the local employment agency to find
another job when I got laid off after Christmas. When you make peanuts, the
unemployment was very minimal and a couple weeks before Valentines day I got a
job with a wholesale Greenhouse.
Former Ball Seed Vice President Peter Stanley was one of the most manic people I’d ever met. He had reconstructed two 440 foot greenhouses and was striking out on his own with his patented concept called Jet Plugs. Instead of the usual 75 cent plugs these were much smaller and only about 35 cents if I recall, so that was 40 cents a plant profit. I learned the long road from producer to purchaser.
One day running between greenhouses I caught the top of my head on a
round eyehook. Shouldn’t have torn my head open since it wasn’t sharp in any way, but
that was a trip to the emergency clinic and 13 stitches. My nickname was
Zipperhead for a while.
So
there I was off to a new job in early February with the temperature around 10
degrees and a dry wicked wind was blowing so it felt like it was well below
zero and I was reminded of one of the reasons I moved to Arizona. It was COLD!
Everything was frozen and the loading dock area looked to be abandoned with
4’x4’ flattened boxes blowing around and other litter was being blown around. I
was looking for a job here? It looked like a disaster area.
Peter
was short on employees and this was his problem. So he hired me on at $4.25 an
hour which was 25% more than I was making at Tarnow Nursery. An employee was
walkie talkied to come and give me an orientation. She was one of those tall Nordic women who cursed very fluently. We got on pretty good, I was always
monogamous, so there was never sexual tension with any female co-workers.
In the world of capitalism, men are sheltered from the minorities and they were the bosses of the women and this is why so much sexism remains. You treat a woman like a dude, and they respond in kind. At the mall I also talked with dozens of the employees from every demographic. I reject the notion that I “don’t know how to communicate”. At Tarnow Nursery I met practically everyone in town who came to check out the place. I had the gift of gab when I was younger. I spent the entirety of the 80's meeting people. 9 different jobs 9 different experiences.
I don’t
remember the flaxen haired Valkyries name but she walked me to the first
Greenhouse and it was a moment like no other. People with glasses know how they
fog up in changing conditions. Ten below zero with a wicked wind chill and it
was like Dorothy opening the door to the colors of Oz.
Tropical
plants as far as the eye could see and a temperature to match. Plants poised
for the Valentines Day sales. Here was a new experience to jump into, fer sure.
Many tales I will relate later and just one to keep the flow. Bosses such as
Jim the asshole came along and White Knight Dwight from out of state was a hired gun and
a spectacular dude. No college for him either and he was older than me and had a wide variety of job experiences. He and his friend from Pittsburgh
completely refurbished the existing greenhouses and brought another one into
service.
When
all was said and done, our little family moved to the field office of
Consolidated Cigar that Dwight and Marian had p reviouslylived in. There was always a boss
over me, and they all got fired or quit and I was a constant for Stanley
Greenhouses and now lived across the street in the cutest little white house you
ever saw.
Summer
of 86 with my first biological child who was a fun little baby and it was an
exciting time. I believe the wife quit her job to be a mommy since I was
putting in 60 hours a week, and making enough. A typical day would have me at
7:00 walking over to begin venting around 15,000 sq. ft. of greenhouse.
By
then the Weather Channel had become the bomb, and I would vent accordingly,
depending on that days conditions. Rolling carts waited on the very large
loading dock and sometimes I took a smaller truck and loaded from the
greenhouse. Then I would drive and deliver for ten hours going to Mattapan or
Poughkeepsie or over Mt Adams with a ton of wet plants. I’d come back and close
the vents to keep the greenhouses at 75 degrees, then walk home after a 13-hour
day. But it was interesting, you know. I set up plant displays at BJ’s
Wholesale and delivered to every Paperama in southern New England out to the Hudson
in New York.
Work
hard and be rewarded was the message of my youth but then I learned from a
friend that I had to work smart. That made sense. But did it mean conniving to
scratch and claw my way above other employees? Yes, it did. The secret to the American
Dream, if you wanted financial security, is that you needed to be the boss. To be able
to manipulate people to work harder than they should. Squeezing productivity from underpaid employees was never a lure to
me.
The
boss at Walmart making sure no one talks to each other. The warehouse manager
not caring about workers injuries. The head nurse that all the CNA’s hate. My
philosophy is that I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like BEING the boss.
So
here I was with caretaking experience, a difficult mall gardening job that
included irrigation work, and then some electrical work. A nursery job and
greenhouse experience. I was training myself in Horticulture. So, by 1987 Peter
ratcheted down his business because his mercurial bossmanship just wasn’t
making the money he expected, although of course he blamed the employees.
He
even had me set up a retail shop the spring after Dwight left and people
recognized me from Tarnows. Then there were the BJ Wholesale sites where I set
up the indoor displays and returned weekly to replace plants in ‘86. I even
drove to Syracuse a couple of times.
I
reckon it was the summer of 87 and I decided I needed indoor plant experience
on my resume. The good thing about interior plantwork was that it was a way to
work through a New England winter. I spent nine months at Plantations who had
some very professional training. I forgot how I left that job.
Then
there was the Plantscape job where I was the only dude. When they went big on a
pink and black theme with uniforms and stickers and what all else, I found it
amusing and they found a way to frame and fire me.
In
spring of ’88 I got a job with probably one of the best crews ever. There was
the boss, another Lori with an I, who was a dairy farmers daughter. She had
grown up with machines and tractors and got the notion to start a landscaping
business. Dwarf Evergreens were trending and the plant selection was minty and
the boss was calm and organized.
There
was Bob the biker. A big bear of a guy with a big beard that the boss described
as more a Teddy Bear than a Grizzly. There was Randy the Redneck and there were
many interesting discussions altogether between all of us. A big gun enthusiast
and one of the first Preppers I ever met. He had enough food for a year at
least and even an underground gasoline tank. Randy and his Super Swampers were
such a caricature.
Armageddon
happens and people are hungry roaming the land for food and shelter We asked
him what he would do if dozens of hungry people and their children were walking
up his driveway looking for assistance. His answer was that he would “mow them
down like zombies.” Then there was Mike Two Hawks, who said he was derided as
“only” a quarter blood Mohawk by his peers, but who seemed to be fully
authentic. He taught me ceremony and quite a bit else though he was younger.
There was Dat Shenoy and his family. He was a tech dude who quit
the biz and wanted to be a landlord. He would be buying houses and I would
renovate the landscaping and help him clean and paint the indoors. I’ve liked Painting ever since.
I
don’t know what years those were with Dat and his lovely family and where they
fit in with all those other Connecticut jobs I had, but it was certain
that no one could cite my lack of hustle. A 50 hour week was quite normal
for me in the 80’s. I had packed in quite a bit of training in horticulture and
with Lori I had the classic experience of driving a 1949 Ford tractor down the
state road creating a traffic jam.
With
my previous greenhouse experience, I stayed on with the landscaper when it got too cold
to plant Junipers in the frozen ground. There was Joe Gidvelas with his mafioso
persona. He cursed all the time and was very gruff, except when he was planting
tissue culture jet plugs and he treated those like newborn babies.
In ’89 we got an offer to come to Florida to be manipulated by my in-laws. My dad drove my rusted Datsun King Cab pickup, and I drove a Hertz rental truck like the ones I drove for Stanley. Without cell phones and global positioning satellites, we always had a place where we would meet if we got separated. This was important going on the six lane I-295 around Washington DC.
Susan and Nancy
Probably more administrative skill than
all the men in the Tarnow organization. A song called “The Warrior” brought me
back to that time. And really it all
just brings me back to when I started getting into the groove with a career in
horticulture, botany, hydrology, being in on the beginning of tissue culture
and all the rest.
My first notion is that the Green Industry
is about the least green of them all. All the pollution required to make
plastic and then there’s the toxic particles when it burns.
First there is the immense tracts of
irrigation pipes at Park Mall where I worked in ’81/2. 528 sprinkler heads in
an area so vast I had to use a bicycle to reach the further ends of it. Today they have an easy, remote thingy that lets you to change to different irrigation zones
without having to go back to the time clock.
I started to point out the hypocrisy of using a lot of mulch for environmental reasons when the plastic bags for one job created more plastic garbage than ten families could make in a week! I really noticed it after I moved to Connecticut and worked at Tarnow nursery as a loader. All day long loading “green” products in thousands of plastic bags. Brian and I had to wind down with some California bud and Motley Crues “Shout at the Devil" after loading many tons of bags.
Stanley Greenhouse was a joke in the waste department. Thousands of hanging baskets. Thousands of holiday plants. It was about the profit. I went back to Tarnow for another interesting spring but Stanley wanted me and I got another paltry raise to $4.75.
I went and did 18 months with two
interior plant companies in the third largest indoor plant market at the time,
Hartford Connecticut.
After I told Mike Two Hawks
about my Indian sweet corn project, we began talking how the natives here, The
Podunks among others, lived cleanly and simply on the east side of the
Connecticut River.
I told him about the Charter Oak and how
it was also the ceremonial Oak. When the oak leaves were the size of mouse
ears, it was time to plant the corn. Later the “Fundamental Orders of 1639”
were hidden in the tree.
So I learned ceremony at the start of
the work day. It was the cusp of the
dwarf evergreeen trend and we planted many yards during the year and a half I
worked there. The same crew; a redneck - a biker -an Indian- a farm girl who
loved tractors, -a foul mouthed fat guy and me the heirloom organic dude.
Orchid Island; invasive plants A1A and Jungle Trail and
cutting the pepper at Stickneys.
I made TWO habitat reports and talked to
two property managers and if nothing else showed them up to be hypocrites.
Headline proclaiming how they gave $3726 to the Environmental Learning Center.
A greenwashing of the corporate sort. A showy gift of charity (probably some
costume fetish ball) but not able to comprehend how the 600 acre
community should be managed. No outdoor stewardship, it was about selling memberships and empty million dollar lots. No fucks given for the sake of migrating animals and enhancing
nature. No one to notice the disapearing stands of native plants on site.
I saw an opportunity for me to create a
job with habitat at this place but these richy rich clubs have their richy rich
wanna be millionaire employees (bag boys / shop girls / wait staff / department heads /real estate parasites) all stabbing each other in the back as they kick and claw
their way to the top of the Torwest corporate organization.
Finally, I started my own business The
Garden Green. A humble, small company as there ever was. 2001 to 2021. Now I’m
off to start something new.
Diversions. 2022.
DIVERSIONS 2023
DIVISIONS OF DIVERSIONS
THE GARDEN GREEN
FANCY PLANTS NURSERY
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT
broccoli black thumb
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